Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently made headlines for calling perennial Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein “predatory” and “not serious.” AOC is right.

Giving voters more choices is a good thing for democracy. But third-party politics isn’t performance art. It’s hard work — which Stein is not doing. As AOC observed: “[When] all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious.”

To be clear: AOC was not critiquing third parties as a whole, or the idea that we need more choices in our democracy. In fact, AOC specifically cited the Working Families Party as an example of an effective third party. The organization I lead, MoveOn, supports their 365-day-a-year efforts to build power for a pro-voter, multi-party system. And I understand third parties’ power to activate voters hungry for alternatives: I myself volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000, and that experience helped shape my lifelong commitment to people-first politics.


Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

    • Cephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Supporting evidence for the 3 downvotes ATM:

      Putin’s Shill Stein wants Nato disbanded, the US to give up their SC veto, and revoke weapons to help Ukraine defend itself while simultaneously forcing ‘peace’ (subjugation) negotiations with russia.

      2015 Stein breaking bread with Putin, his senior staff, and Mike Flynn (later Trump’s national security advisor

      More context:

      For those that don’t understand how the Electoral College + FPTP voting works, voting for her means helping donald become president due to the spoiler effect.

      • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals, even if there were no 3rd party candidates running, we would not vote for your right wing pieces of shit. There’s a better chance you would vote for a Republican than any of us would vote for either right wing party.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals

          Dude, I already showed it to you.

          Election report for election "Plurality 2 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          11% of people supported the winner.
          
          Kruger - 112 votes - WINNER
          Sahl - 111 votes
          

          Election report for election "Plurality 3 Candidates"
          Total people: 1047
          10% of people supported the winner.
          
          Sahl - 109 votes - WINNER
          Kruger - 93 votes
          Maikol - 91 votes
          

          The overlap of two circles means there will be an area shared in between. That’s the math, you can’t get around that.

            • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              2 months ago

              “It’s bullshit because it proves I’m full of shit and I don’t actually have an argument against it.”

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                We are not Democrats, so we will not vote for Democrats. They could show all the fucking graphs in the world, And wouldn’t change the fact that we are not Democrats, so we do not vote for Democrats.

                • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 months ago

                  You’re basically saying that there is zero overlap in the venn diagram of third party voters and blue voters, yet you make efforts to convince blue voters to go third party. You know damn well that there is overlap between third party voters and blue voters, otherwise you’d never talk to them.

                  Even if you personally would never vote blue, third party voters are not a monolith, there are third party voters that are closer to the DNC than you are.

        • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          A spoiler is something that only exists in the mind of Liberals

          Math. You’re disagreeing with math. Or are completely unaware of how FPTP voting works (I know this isn’t the case).

          • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Math has nothing to do with the fact that we are not Democrats, so we would not vote for a Democrat. That’s like trying to say math is the reason you won’t vote Republican

            • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              2 months ago

              You don’t have to have be a democrat to vote against fascists.

              I’m not a democrat, but I plan to use my vote strategically, since fascists have a propensity toward murdering their ideological opponents. You can call the DNC fascist all you want, many do, but I’m less inclined to believe that they’ll try to murder leftists vs the US right wing.

              Your ideological purity will not save you from a fascist’s bullet.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                You’re talking as if the Democrat Ratchet effect is not able to fascism. In case there’s any question, yes, it does

                • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Be that as it may, I’ll still use my vote strategically to ensure that the slide toward fascism is as slow as possible, personally. I am not an accelerationist. I feel that I can more effectively perform direct actions, agitate, and educate others in service of leftist ideology during that time. Ideals without sound strategy are little more than masturbatory.

                  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    0
                    arrow-down
                    2
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    We’ve descended into fascism so slowly people can’t see it when it’s standing right there in front of them. That’s why the DNC is always talking about baby steps, incrementalism, small little minute steps to the right. 30 years of small steps to the right has the Democrats embracing war criminals like Dick Cheney.

            • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              2 months ago

              I’m not making any distinction between non votes and 3rd party votes. From a purely electoral perspective a Stein voter is the same as someone who doesn’t show up. This is why people are rightfully frustrated with them. It’s a pretty simple concept and the only response is usually “not uh!”.

              • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                People are upset with 3rd party voters because they won’t fall in line and do what the DNC wants them to do. The DNC feels entitled to every vote not cast for a Republican. If they want our vote they need to earn it, and they never have.

                • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Third parties are not bothering to earn your votes either. They put in zero work except for presidential elections.

                  • anticolonialist@lemmy.world
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    0
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    2 months ago

                    Thats the only time YOU start paying attention to 3rd parties, by parroting what youve heard from the media, who has a vested interest in keeping the oligarchy in power

                • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  I don’t care about the reasoning you make for your actions. We’re talking about the results of those actions.

                  You will affect the race in one of two ways regardless of what you do. You will either benefit Party A or Party B, those parties being the two largest parties, aka Democrats and Republicans. Non votes and 3rd party votes benefit the smaller party, which is the GOP. This is an absolute fact within a FPTP system, even if you can’t accept it because of the obvious implications.

                  If you feel the GOP has done more to earn your support, that’s your call. I just think that’s some next level dumbassery.